Chapter 21
Twenty-One
If you say you’re too full to eat ice cream after dinner, then you are weak, and natural selection will be coming for you.
—Calliope to Jasper
CALLIOPE
I knew the moment he realized what he was feeling.
His finger had been one thing, pinching slightly when he’d entered me the first time.
But I decided that he was so far gone with my mouth around his erection—a strategic plan to make sure he didn’t back out of this before he could think better of it—that he didn’t pay attention to just how tight I was.
Just how much of a virgin I was.
But now that he was trying to fit his cock inside, he realized that something was wrong.
Or, not necessarily wrong, but definitely not “right.”
“Calli,” he said, his voice shaking. “What…”
I sat up and pressed myself back on him, taking him fully into my body with one swift movement.
His breath caught, and his hands went to my hips.
I knew that he was about to pull me off of him.
I just knew it.
And I couldn’t let that happen.
Because I wanted this so badly that it hurt.
I’d wanted him for the longest of times, and now that I was exactly where I wanted to be—him inside of me to the hilt—I didn’t want it to stop.
“Please,” I begged against his lips. “Please, please, please.”
His hands loosened, moving down to the juncture of where my thighs met my hips, and pressed down. At the same time, he ground himself up inside of me, and I saw stars.
I’d never known what to expect from sex.
I’d always fully expected it to be lackluster at best.
I mean, the few times that I’d done anything with boys, they’d always gone comically wrong.
But I should’ve known better.
Jasper was not a man who did anything half-ass.
He always gave it his all, and he would please his woman.
He knew exactly what to do as he manipulated my hips in a rolling motion.
At just the right time, he’d press upward, and my breath would catch.
My nipples were hard, and I couldn’t stop myself from sitting up and cupping them in my hands while he expertly manipulated my body.
A groan left my lips when I pinched my nipples, and he growled at me after a few long seconds.
“Lean forward so I can taste them.”
I did as he said, my hands going to either side of his head, so that I could dangle my breasts over his face.
I’d hated my breasts since the beginning of time. They always seemed too big for my small frame. From the first moment that I could remember, I’d strapped them down under two sports bras from the moment that I woke up to the moment I went to bed. But in the sanctity of my own home…
And now he was worshipping them, licking and sucking my nipples into his mouth like they were the best thing on earth.
I didn’t know where to focus.
Didn’t know what to do.
Honestly, I was just along for the ride as he fucked me into a different realm.
Pleasure like I’d never experienced before started to slither through me, slow at first until it ramped up to unbearable.
I was so lost in the unexpected that I didn’t know what the feeling was until it took me over completely.
I cried out, my eyes squeezing so tightly closed that I saw stars.
“Fuck, baby,” he said, his lips tickling against my nipple. “That’s it. Ride me.”
I did, awkwardly at first until I was slamming myself down in such a way that our skin was slapping together.
The scream that left my throat would’ve woken him had he been at home.
But, thank my lucky stars, he was here, inside me, showing me everything that I’d been missing for my entire life.
“Fuck, baby,” he growled. “That’s it. Keep going. You’re gonna keep riding it.”
I did, though I was unsure how since my body had ceased being my own.
He rolled me onto my back, and the rest was taken out of my hands.
His cock slammed into me hard after that, taking that lovely orgasm he’d just given me and magnifying it tenfold.
My voice was hoarse from screaming by the time that I’d come down from my second orgasm.
He slowed to a stop and pressed deep, a grunt leaving his throat as all the air swept out of his lungs.
His cock jerked inside of me, and my eyes closed as I felt him fill me up with hot jets of his cum. Everything felt sticky when he all but collapsed on top of me.
My sweat. His. His juices. Mine.
And even the damn cookies that we’d somehow rolled over on top of.
“Jas,” I whispered. “I can’t breathe.”
“You’re talking, so you’re breathing,” he muttered.
I snorted out a laugh, though I did have to admit it was slightly hard to draw a breath.
“We’re smashing all the cookies,” I tried again.
He grunted.
I ran my hand through his hair, my fingers finding the ridged scars even on his scalp.
I let him lie there, silently running my fingers through his hair until he finally scrounged up enough energy to roll over.
This time the bottle of Dr Pepper I’d brought into the bed earlier hit the floor and rolled.
“You’re a mess,” he said as he took me with him, his fingers going to my back.
I knew that there was probably melted chocolate and crumbs stuck to me, but it didn’t seem like either one of us had the energy to care.
Three orgasms. Two of which were given by Jasper’s penis.
I was ecstatic.
“Please tell me we can do this again,” I breathed against his chest.
His cock twitched inside of me. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
I smiled against his chest. “That sounds like a cop-out.”
“Give me a little time,” he said. “I’m not lying when I tell you that everything hurts. Though, it seems like you have a temporary fix for all that ails me.”
I snorted and leaned up, his half-hard cock pushing inside of me again.
His eyes flared.
Both of our phones went off, but neither one of us moved.
Well, we moved. But it definitely wasn’t to check our phones.
It was a couple of hours later before either one of us got around to checking our phones.
The first message that popped up on mine was an alert about ice, rain, and snowfall.
The second was an alert from the power company telling us of a possibility of power failure due to the power lines and ice.
The third was from the tow truck driver alerting me that he’d dropped my truck off in my driveway.
The fourth was from my sister ordering me not to leave because the roads were horrible.
It also hit me then that I remembered that I was supposed to go to her house in the morning to celebrate Christmas.
“Whoops,” I said. “I probably should’ve anticipated this storm and gone over there earlier tonight.”
“Your sister?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I showed him the text. “She’s going to be all sad now that I didn’t make it over there.”
“She’ll live.” He tossed his own phone down onto the bed. “Apollo texted to say that he was handling my shit, and to enjoy my night.”
The way he said it so suggestively made me blink furiously at him. “He knew?”
“I’m sure everyone knows,” he sighed. “I wasn’t very subtle about how I felt about you. That was why Cutter made me run that marathon.”
“You should’ve told him to go fuck himself,” I grumbled. “And what did he say to make you run that? You seriously hate running.”
I hated pointing out the obvious here but…
“Doc.” He pulled me in tight to his naked chest. “Doc’s protective of you.”
I snorted. “He’s something.”
“He’s protective.” Jasper ignored my comment. “And he loves you. He doesn’t think any of us are good enough.”
I went up onto my forearms on his chest and looked down at him with confusion clearly written all over my face. “Doc tolerates me. At best.”
“Doc loves you, at least. He likes you a lot. Everyone likes you a lot.”
At that, I snorted. “Uh, hate to tell you this, Jasper, but not everyone feels the same way as you. I get told on a daily basis that I’m a pain in the ass.
And honestly, I probably always will be.
I’m a mess, and though I’m slowly getting my shit together, I still revert back to that angry teen quite a bit. ”
“I think you’d be surprised.” He curled my hair behind my ear with two fingers.
When it fell right back into place, he did it again, but this time held my hair there when his eyes once again met mine.
“Everyone loves you. Especially all the kids. They think you walk on water, and that makes everyone like you all the more. Do you have a bad attitude sometimes? Yes. Do you refuse help when we all know you could use it? Also very much yes. But we also notice when you go out of your way to be kind to an old man and invite him to a club party. We notice when you agree to take a job in the middle of the busiest season of the year because you felt bad that you got someone fired. Let’s not forget when Apollo’s son died, you made him that picture frame with all the photos that you collected from every single club member you could find.
Or when Knight and Elaine died, you went out of the way to help with the kids so the rest of us could grieve.
You’re a good person, Calli. Maybe you should start letting yourself believe it. ”
I pressed my forehead against my forearms, not sure what to say.
But it didn’t matter, because he kept speaking.
“Last year, when you broke your hand and foot in that accident, I’ve never hated another person more.
That bitch was yelling and screaming at you, and when I pulled up you were trying really hard not to get mad.
But then she said something about Anders and made a move in her direction, and I watched you transform into this glorious superbeing that would’ve taken on the entire world for her sister,” he murmured, his chest rumbling with his words as he continued to play with the hair that continued to fall from behind my ear.
“That lady looked so damn taken back when you started to go off on her. She probably thought you were an easy target, but you most certainly are not. There you were, limping and barely able to walk, with your finger in that woman’s face. ”
“You picked me up and carried me to the ambulance,” she muttered. “I wasn’t even finished with her.”
“You were about to hit her with your broken hand, so yeah, you were.” He smoothed his hand from my hair to my chin and lifted it. “We don’t see you like you see yourself.”
My body melted against his as tears filled my eyes. “My mom was a horrible person.”
He smoothed his thumb over the apple of my cheek. “What little I’ve heard about her, I can see why you wouldn’t have anything to do with her.”
“She calls me all the time,” I muttered.
“And Searcy was working her ass off so much that she didn’t see, but Mom took advantage of her so badly.
Always stealing her money when she wasn’t looking.
Forcing Searcy to take on that role of a mom.
Forced Searcy to drop out of school. Then, when that wasn’t enough, she started on me.
” I swallowed. “One night…” I hesitated, unsure if I could get the words out.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“She tried to sell me to a man for five hundred dollars.”
He tensed underneath me.
“She said she was joking, but all jokes have a little truth in them. And that night was the night that I decided that I wouldn’t deal with her shit anymore.
I made it my mission to get money and get the fuck out of there the moment I turned eighteen,” I replied.
“Plus, if I wasn’t there to take care of, Searcy had one less mouth to feed. ”
“Searcy shouldn’t have had to do any of that,” he pointed out.
“No,” I agreed. “She shouldn’t have.”
“Where is your mom now?” he asked. “Still running that diner?”
“The diner she ran shut down a while ago because no one would stay working there,” she said. “She sold it for a song to one of the waitresses or cooks. Baker went there a couple of weeks ago to meet Copper for lunch and they said it was a completely different place.”
“So why does she call you?”
“For money,” I said. “The first time she at least tried to disguise it as she wanted to spend time with Anders. But when I asked her why she wouldn’t want to spend time with Kent, too, she had no answer. It was like he hadn’t even occurred to her.”
“Twat.” He twirled some of my hair around his finger. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“What I was going to do was go to Searcy’s around nine. Watch the kids open presents and help with breakfast,” I answered. “Clean up. Oh, and I have to prepare for my job interview.”
“Your job interview?” he questioned.
I sat up and reached for a cookie that was on the bedside table.
“I have a job interview the day after tomorrow. The big boss knew it was bad timing, but he goes out of town every year to visit his family in Italy, and won’t be back again until mid-February.
He said it was either now or then. I chose now. ”
“What is it and where?” he questioned.
I gave him the basics of the job and what I would be expected to do there.
He listened intently while I ate the cookie over his chest, dropping crumbs all over him. He didn’t seem to mind, though, and even picked up a chocolate chip and popped it into his mouth.
“Do you want this job?” he questioned.
I scrunched up my nose. “I want it because it’ll be a great job. I really wanted a different job, but I’m not really willing to move to make it happen.”
“Move where?” he asked.
“Forney,” I answered. “It’s not super far away in the grand scheme of things, but they want me within fifteen miles.”
“Why aren’t you willing to move?” he questioned.
I opened my mouth and then closed it, really considering what he was asking.
Why wasn’t I willing to move?
“Anders. Kent. Pane. Cassidy. Dalton. Searcy,” I answered, then hesitated. “You.”
His lips twitched.
In all honesty, I liked living where I was living. I liked even more that Jasper lived next to me.
I may not have always gotten along with him, but I liked him being next to me.
I felt safer.
And I always knew that if I needed anything, he’d be there.
“Seeing you grumpy every time I opened your mail or ate your food was always a highlight of my day.”
He snorted. “You do know, correct, that sometimes I only let you eat it was because I liked you?”
I gasped. “You like me, Jasper Madden?”
He twisted us so that he was once again hovering over me, my forgotten cookie still in my hand above his head.
“I’ve liked you for entirely way too long,” he said. “You were practical jailbait when you first came on my radar.”
I hummed. “Is that right?”
“That’s right,” he said. “But you’re all grown up now, aren’t you?”
I fed him the last bite of my cookie and watched his eyes dance before saying, “Doc won’t care that much.”
“Doc will care a lot,” he disagreed. “But I don’t think I really give a shit.”